


Curse Eater

by Shadow_Maven



Category: Original Work
Genre: Flash Fic, Gen, Haunting, Horror, One Shot, vampire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21909508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_Maven/pseuds/Shadow_Maven
Summary: No one has ever broken the curse of Leianna Moore. No one human, that is. Meet Asher Desmond...





	Curse Eater

**Author's Note:**

> A little something I might expand later.

Punctual as ever, Eva's waiting for me at the curb. Her trench coat, brilliant crimson, sears through the fog, the only spot of color in a dreary landscape. "I wasn't sure you'd come, she says, voice quavering. "Thank you." She rummages inside her bag for the house keys. I don't really need them, but the appearance of normalcy must be maintained. "My boss doesn't believe in ghosts or curses. If he knew I was here, he'd—"

"Then this will have to be our little secret." My smile reveals my curse: a set of perfectly white, _straight_ teeth.

She hands over the keys, clasping my hand with both of hers. "You are my last hope, Mr. Desmond."

"Leianna Moore's curse ends tonight. Meet me back here in one hour."

"One?" Her wide violet eyes register shock and disbelief.

"One."

She hurries to her car but a shudder ripples through her as she glances back at the house, a red brick Victorian with gingerbread trim. "Such a pretty place, it's hard to believe it's haunted."

But is. No one has ever been able to break Leianna Moore's curse—no one human, that is—but the only human here just pulled away in her Audi. An eater of curses, I am also cursed—a vampire forced to feast on spectral energy.

Soon, Leianna will know what I am.

We will meet and her curse will die with her.

Dead leaves litter the walkway and crunch beneath my boots. Only when I've reached the veranda do I assume a half-solid form. Just enough flesh, enough soul to whet her appetite. Creatures like Leianna are always hungry and what I am can still bleed.

Entering the foyer, a narrow space draped in cobwebs, silence enfolds me, its pregnant stillness charged with malice. Cold assails me next, frigid gusts that reek of an open grave. _Scritch-scratch—pop! Scritch-swish!_ Like a lizard, she scurries down the wall, the joints of gruesomely contorted limbs cracking. Lank hair obscures half her pallid face like an inky waterfall.

Feigning fear, I wait for her bloodstained fist to pierce my chest, then savor her reaction when the attack stirs only dust motes in the stale air. Recoiling, jaw unhinging like a snake's, she screams, then strikes again.

Fisting hanks of hair, I pull her close, open my mouth, and draw out her essence in greedy gulps. Though she twists and writhes and kicks, she cannot escape. Shrinking, withering, she implodes with a tiny whimper. What is left of Leianna falls in ashen flakes about my feet.

Doors fling open, windows burst. The curse is broken; Leianna is no more! Giddy, drunken with victory, I stagger out, down the walk, and into Eva's welcoming arms. As I pull her close, night crashes around me, a cacophony of sounds and smells, but deep within, an insatiable hunger swells.

Bones crunch.

Blood spurts.

Eva's limp body slides to the ground.

I run my tongue over blood-slickened lips and teeth with knife-edged tips, my curse finally broken by eating Leianna's, just as I'd hoped.

Leianna Moore may be over but I have just begun!


End file.
